Turf war behind Boris Johnson’s shock new job

By appointing Boris Johnson to the post of foreign secretary, Theresa May has made public what British diplomats have been trying to hide for years: The Foreign Office is a shadow of its former self.

It has lost power in the world and has lost power in the internal hierarchy of the British government. The Prime Minister’s Office and the Treasury are in charge nowadays. The appointment of Johnson will only accelerate that trend.

Most of his predecessors as foreign secretary had previously held government office, or at least held the foreign affairs portfolio in opposition. When the U.K. entered the European Union in 1973, the foreign secretary was an ex-prime minister — Alec Douglas-Home. Johnson, by contrast, has held the opposition post of shadow arts minister, from which he was sacked after six months for lying to his party leader.

He has a rare ability to connect with ordinary people and his human warmth might yet be useful on the international stage.

He was mayor of London for eight years — but the powers of that office should not be exaggerated. The most important are over public transport and policing, but even they are limited. May, as home secretary, prevented him from using three water cannons that he had bought for London from Germany. During the recent leadership campaign, May briefly recalled that incident as she scorned Johnson’s negotiating skills.

Nevertheless, May clearly recognizes other political skills that apparently outweigh his inexperience. She used to chair the Conservative Party and knows how highly he is regarded by party members and non-aligned voters. He has a rare ability to connect with ordinary people and his human warmth might yet be useful on the international stage.

Otherwise Johnson’s main qualification for holding what by tradition is one of the U.K.’s great offices of state, with powers over an extensive diplomatic service, is that he has a journalist’s knack of mastering subjects quickly, sufficient to sound plausible for a few minutes or a few hundred words.

As far as the European Union is concerned, his attempt at plausibility will be helped by having a greater familiarity with Brussels than any of his predecessors. He briefly went to school here in the 1970s when his father was working for the European Commission. He returned for a few years as Brussels correspondent of the Daily Telegraph between 1989 and 1994.

But Johnson’s interlocutors in Brussels who seek to fathom how the U.K.’s new relationship with the European Union might evolve would be well advised to look elsewhere. On Wednesday evening, in the first few hours of her premiership, May announced the appointment to top government jobs of three politicians who had campaigned for the U.K. to leave the EU: Johnson as foreign secretary; Liam Fox as minister for international trade; and David Davis as minister for exiting the EU.

People in Brussels trying to work out which of those three will determine the U.K.’s European policy should opt for that stalwart of the multiple-choice test: none of the above. The more likely answer is a combination of May and Philip Hammond, the chancellor of the exchequer.

That would be to continue the relentless direction of travel since the turn of the century: David Cameron and George Osborne shaped EU policy rather than then foreign secretary Hammond, or his predecessor William Hague. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were the decisive influences from 1997 to 2010. And beneath the top layer of politicians, it is the Treasury’s officials who have prevailed over the Foreign Office diplomats.

One indication of that has been the position of the U.K.’s permanent representative to the EU — i.e, the ambassador in Brussels.

From 1973 until 2012, the position was held by a Foreign Office diplomat. But then Cameron appointed Jon Cunliffe, a Treasury civil servant. In 2013, he was succeeded by Ivan Rogers, another career Treasury official.

Just as importantly, the Treasury colonized the position of head of the EU secretariat in the Cabinet Office, which co-ordinates the work of domestic and foreign departments on EU matters.

Through incremental reform during the early years of the 21st century that position pivoted away from the Foreign Office and became more directly linked to the Prime Minister’s Office. Stephen Wall, who was permanent representative to the EU from 1995 to 2000, went on to be head of the EU secretariat where he was succeeded in 2004 by another diplomat, Kim Darroch, who went on to be the permanent representative in Brussels (2007-2012).

Thereafter the position went to the Treasury secondees, Rogers and Cunliffe, and then to Tom Scholar, who at the start of the year was leading for Cameron on a renegotiation of the U.K.’s relationship with the EU and has just returned to the Treasury as a second permanent secretary.

At the same time, Treasury officials came to dominate the private office of the prime minister. It helped that since 2002 the three officials who have held the post of cabinet secretary — the most senior position in the civil service — were drawn from the ranks of the Treasury. Those cabinet secretaries have had a tendency to promote Treasury officials to other posts in the Prime Minister’s Office. The principal private secretary (PPS), has frequently been a Treasury secondee. Scholar had been PPS to Cameron in 2007-2008, Rogers was PPS to Blair from 2003 to 2006.

* * *

In the hierarchy of the British civil service, what the Foreign Office and the Treasury have in common is that each has an insufferable sense of superiority — and each is therefore resented by all other government departments.

The Foreign Office’s sense of superiority, however, is qualified by an awareness that there is a world outside the U.K., to which, in a post-imperial age, the government might have to adjust. The Treasury’s sense of superiority is merely exacerbated by its power over the government purse strings, which ultimately means that it can dictate rather than persuade.

Arguably that disdain contributed to the government’s failure to win the referendum campaign: The Treasury’s warnings of economic risk did not persuade voters to refrain from voting Leave.

What matters now to the internal dynamics of the U.K.’s policymaking on Europe is how the new department for exiting the European Union is established.

In the immediate aftermath of the referendum result, the government announced the creation of a unit in the Cabinet Office to prepare advice on Brexit. The head of that unit — and head of the EU secretariat — was named as Oliver Robbins, who is — no surprise — an ex-Treasury official and ex-PPS to the prime minister.

Intriguingly, Robbins was appointed late last year to the Home Office (then headed by Theresa May) as second permanent secretary to work on immigration and free movement — i.e., effectively a Treasury appointee to work on the most problematic political problem confronting the government.

Boris Johnson’s lack of experience as a minister and his temperament — plus a lack of attention to detail — leave him ill-equipped to fight turf wars.

It seems likely that Robbins and the Brexit unit will become the foundation of the new government department for exiting the European Union. At the creation of such a new department, the cabinet secretary has enormous opportunity for influence. Whatever ministers might want to achieve, they are reliant on the machinery of the civil service to come up with the resources — most importantly to come up with talented and energetic individuals.

Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood will decide how the plumbing and wiring between the different departments are to work. The expectation must be that the new Brexit department will be shaped to the Treasury’s liking.

None of that bodes well for the Foreign Office, whose brightest and best learnt more than a decade ago that to specialize on European matters was not advantageous to their careers. A further erosion of its power seems likely. Boris Johnson’s lack of experience as a minister and his temperament — plus a lack of attention to detail — leave him ill-equipped to fight turf wars.

Liam Fox, the international trade minister, who was defense minister from 2010 to 2011, when forced to resign over a lobbying scandal, will compete with Johnson for the attention of international media. But the greater threat to Foreign Office power will be David Davis, the minister for Brexit. Davis’ varied CV (minister for Europe, shadow home secretary, chair of the public accounts committee) includes being runner-up in the leadership contest of 2005, when Cameron won.

He has a reputation for being a hardline Euroskeptic, but that should blind no one to his time as a government whip in the early 1990s, when John Major’s government was trying to obtain parliamentary ratification of the EU’s Maastricht treaty. His task was to keep the Maastricht rebels in check, and he was effective, hard-working and disciplined. If he can stay on good terms with May and Hammond, his influence is likely to grow.

May has set in train a curious institutional competition: On the one hand, a venerable government department, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, headed by an inexperienced minister, Boris Johnson. On the other hand, a neophyte government department for Brexit, headed by a battle-hardened veteran, David Davis.

From the outset, the competition looks fixed: The winner will be the Treasury.

Authors:

Related stories on these topics:

Chris Bobinski

great piece Tim –

Posted on 7/15/16 | 8:08 AM CET

cp1199

No matter what competition they have, it seems at the end the UK civil servants will do whatever is good for their country while in the US, the GOP will do whatever is needed to hold on to their power no matter how bad the consequences are for their country.

Posted on 7/15/16 | 9:22 PM CET

me

@cp1199

It is the nature of politicians the world over.

Posted on 7/16/16 | 2:11 PM CET

Maria Valentina Umer

So, the Foreign Office is subjugated to the Treasury! It figures. Little England is a little Wall Street. The world and its affairs, which are increasingly important for ALL countries, doesn´t interest the UK “leaders“. It´s all about the City, money, and the rabid investment by Golf Sheiks in the City´s real estate.
But the UK has been developing and practicing this stance for decades, while neglecting its working class and their needs to share in the wealth. No wonder it came to Brexit! But, obviously, for the wrong reasons on the part of the Brexiteers who were manipulated into it with lies by the likes of Johnson.
Splendid isolation! (but with Mid East oil money!)

Posted on 7/16/16 | 3:34 PM CET

Tom Cullem

Well, if the UK Foreign Office has been losing influence for so long, maybe the “experienced” guys weren’t doing such a good job. Let’s see what Boris does.

I know that as it is, the faux progressive media is galled beyond measure that the earth hasn’t opened and swallowed the UK after voting LEAVE, that murmurs of trade deals are rising, that even Schauble in Germany is murmuring that “of course access to the single market can be a part of a BREXIT deal . . .” Australia and the US (shortly to be minus Mr End of the Queue Ally Threatener in Chief) already making nice noises, and Oh My God Boris Is Back . . .

Too bad the same standards weren’t applied to PR man Cameron as he broke one promise after another and grovelled before Brussels instead of playing the strongest card he had: leading a BREXIT campaign if he didn’t get what he needed.

Scotland is still in the UK. Sturgeon played her little Outrage Drama, Brussels sent her packing, May will quietly lay out the truth: economically and politically, Scotland would end up a nobody on its own in the EU, and it will all quiet down.

And Oh My God Boris Is Back. Why not give it awhile and see how it all plays out. The EU is now going to have to figure out what to do with Erdogan – if it keeps playing ball with him, the UK may be glad in a very short time it got out.

But don’t let any of that get in the way of all the reflexive nay and doom saying.

Posted on 7/17/16 | 2:56 AM CET

Eleanor

Boris has a superb and almost encyclopediac knowledge of history. This will serve him well in this new job. He may act like an idiot in order to sell something, but in this job I think people will be pleasantly surprised.